The Perils of Wonderland - Alice's Return
by lovelytunes
Summary: Sequel to the original 1951 animated feature...
1. Chapter 1

Having been awakened by her sister, Alice rubbed her eyes clear and hastily got up from the daisy flower bed to pick up Dinah...Always a strict keeper of time and duties, it appeared that Alice's oldest sister was already at a stretch of distance away when Alice looked up from her preciously cradled feline in her arms. Struggling to catch up with her, the girl took off running fast, but having a height that was less than half her target, who was already in her early twenties, Alice started panting helplessly before even reaching and crossing out of the farthest edge of the flower bed...

With a high probability of it occurring, Alice subsequently slipped over the uneven slope in an attempt to catch hold of Dinah, which she felt to be dropping out of her loosening grip due to her accelerating sprint. The outcome was Dinah remained safe and tight within her grasp but it was Alice who fell pitifully onto the flowers and grass in a thud.

Sighing in defeat and wincing a little from the pain on her reddened knees, Alice rolled over giving up all hope of reaching her indifferent sister. Breathing in the lovely scent of innumerable starry white daisies, Alice gathered strength to sit up straight again and check on her bruised knees, letting Dinah crawled over to the side. Slowly and lifting up her knees with care into a full better view, Alice was about to grumble in frustration about her unfortunate day when Dinah leapt into her plain white apron again, fetching her beloved owner of what appeared to be an extremely long length of pink ribbon...

"Now, just look at how cute and pretty is that! It's no wonder you're my very best! This is so much better than falling into an empty blank nap all the while she was reading to me insensible words back then!" Alice smiled and patted Dinah's furry head affectionately. She then turned her attention to rolling up the seemingly endless string of ribbon, a wishful thinking that she could just use that to bandage her mild knee wounds...Yet, it took 'them' forever to do so as the thing was like an eternal yarn without a beginning, urging Alice to get up on her feet and limp from the flower beds to follow its 'route' all the way to a hidden bush before the forest.

When the ribbon finally revealed its termination, both of them were surprised to find that it was attached to the inside of a gold and silver plated watch locket...


	2. Chapter 2

Warily but curiously, Alice drew a finger towards the quaint item to touch the face of the watch locket on the grass. As soon as she did so, the hands of the watch began spinning at a rapid rate until a forceful gust of wind emerged from the middle inside of the locket, pushing through its thin glass into the air and then blowing silvery sparkling dust onto Alice's face as she stared dumbfoundedly close in front of it. Squinting her eyes to shield from a gradually blinding glow of light, the mysterious wind then turned and churned until it grew to be a giant agitated spirals surrounding Alice and Dinah as the girl grabbed hold tightly onto her beloved companion out of fright and startlement. Soon, the two were sucked strongly by the fearsome wind, shrinking both their real life size until they could be drawn in a flash of a moment right into the watch locket...

A spell of headache descended and ascended...A myriad of foggy rainbows circling within the edge of consciousness...Speeding through the dream of once upon a time, Alice was once again enlightened in her memories and gathered up her strength to awake in this realm of dearly-missed land. Pushing aside her golden bangs and opening her eyes once again, she reacquainted with her senses and found herself laying on some soft cushion-like support with still hardly awake Dinah hugged tightly in her arms...

She let out a weary yawn, stretching wide only to feel herself suddenly wobbling that she has to grip fast and hard onto the broad neck of a...galloping white unicorn horse...


	3. Chapter 3

"Oh, thank you so much for taking us safe here!" Alice expressed once the horse slowed to a halt and crouched down gently to let her alight from its back while she held Dinah snugly. They stopped in the middle of a bridge which stood before a towering waterfall.

Alice was about to pat off some dust off her apron skirt but she very quickly realised they were actually sparkling cotton-like glitters in pale rainbow colours instead. Dinah yawned confusedly and wearily, before sneezing lightly due to the glitters been rubbed onto its whole body of fur. They came from what Alice discovered to be the soft body of the unicorn horse whom they rode on. Alice immediately squealed in delight and was about to hug the dear creature tight to introduce herself. Alas, with just a tender touch of her slender finger, it shimmered with a flurry of more rainbow glitters before shrinking and transforming into a solid miniature pendant fashioned in its likeness but was now completely stiff and frozen. It then attached itself to the watch locket dangling from the edge of Alice's dress side pocket.

"Oh dear...Have I been dreaming about things?" Alice was still puzzled over all the magical rush of events and gasped with disappointment over the vanishing of a newfound friend.

Dinah wanted to help her and so leapt over to the ground to nudge Alice's knee. For each little movement, there was a tinkling melody resounded from the mysterious locket. Though overwhelmed, Alice took heed of Dinah and realised her long ribbon-tied treasure. She blinked back fleeting tears and stooped down to scoop her best furry friend back into the cradle of her fair arms. Breathing a little sigh, she held up the locket to her eye level, mesmerised by the enchanting tune it produced for the both of them. Then, slowly but surely, Alice found her eyes heavy and ears drawn deeper and deeper into the once again rapidly spinning needles of the watch right before her face...The backdrop of the huge waterfall gradually had its enormous flow of snowy-white waters stopped and freezed right away in a split second, as Dinah and Alice instantaneously drifted off into a soothing slumber...


	4. Chapter 4

Still asleep on the floor of a high fortress-like tower, Alice was completely unaware of the point in space where Dinah and her have been taken to beyond the waterfall...The watch locket strewn around her wrist and the rough concrete on which the two of them laid began to wind speedily by itself...The hands of the watch which pointed at the twelfth hour sharp now resounded with soft chimes and began to move...

"Alice...Alice..."

The girl began to stir a little, as she could hear silent whispers in her ears, calling her back into her consciousness and senses...A little dizzy spell to overcome and stifling a light yawn, Alice gripped tight onto the ribbon strings of the endearing locket before she rubbed her pair of weary eyes open and pulling together all her strength to sit up again. After stretching her arms wide, Alice gently scooped her beloved Dinah back into her arms.

"Oh Dinah dear, was it you calling me? Now why did you fall back into sleep again?" Alice cooed her little companion, cuddling it close to herself. She would feel guilty should she attempt to wake up her sweetie kitten and decided to find out by herself of what has been happening so far. Glancing around from their position at a certain level of a tower with a height which seemed to ascend far above the low clouds, everything she could set her eyes on was foggy and dreamlike that made her felt like a floating being up in the skies. However, the curiosity within her could not be satisfied and Alice quickly got up on her feet to race through the blur misty air and gazed down from the tower...

"Wooow...Dinah, did you see all that?!" Alice had no need to nudge her little one awake for Dinah has already arose due to all her mistress' swift footsteps. As it opened its eyes, both of them were awed by the wondrous view below of the whole of Wonderland, reviving Alice's clarity and realisation of her once dream adventures out there...

"Oh, Dinah...This is so beautiful...of where I have once been...You should have come with me that afternoon...It's a world of nonsensical imaginations that never ends!" Alice smiled affectionately and lifted her amused Dinah a little up higher so she could get a more exhilarating sight of all the land below them...Alice was extremely drawn in to every bit of detail she could lay her eyes on so that nothing was amiss from her recollections.

"Alice..."

The familiar inaudible whisper came again, alerting Alice out of her engrossed reverie...As she turned about, causing the unexpecting Dinah to feel its head spinning, the walls like those of a thick ancient fortress behind them were seen having rapid torrents of water gushing out of them through widening cracks and hollows in between the pale white brick layers, shocking Alice and Dinah...

"Oh my, what are we gonna do, Dinah?" The alarmed girl bemoaned but poor old Dinah could only shake its head helplessly.

In their plight, Alice came to think of the mysterious unicorn friend which once brought them back into this never-before-known part of Wonderland, and so she held up the watch locket again. Indeed, she saw the pendant of its likeness still remaining inside the locket...Alice then quickly raced over to the walls and a thought dawned on her to tear off parts of edges of her white apron and stuff them into the spilling cracks as fast as she could. Agile Dinah crawled up to sit atop Alice's head grabbing her hair so she would not get in the way, but instead the kitty also cleverly lent a hand as Alice passed her those pieces of her apron.

The watch dangling from Alice's blue dress pocket has its hands stopped running and wound back to 12 o'clock. Before the two could even notice fully, the torrential flow of water also came to slow down considerably in volumes with the remnant that has filled the area quickly evaporating into the air in the form of huge soapy bubbles...Quick-witted Dinah nudged the still anxiously working Alice to look about and pause for a rest...When Alice took heed of her advisor pet, she was greatly relieved of the recovered sight around them and slumped down onto the moist ground.

Heaving in exhaustion and patting Dinah, the girl was even more surprised when she looked down at her own apron and found that it was still in whole with none of the edges torn. Instead, rainbow-colour flower laces began to appear around all the edges of her dress like sprouting seedlings, intriguing and delighting Alice and Dinah. Dinah then pointed out to her that those cloth pieces she had removed a while ago and stuffed tight into the wet cracks of the walls right behind them were creased, churned and transformed into real flowers.

Alice and Dinah looked at each other questioningly, and then Dinah shook its head in wonder.

"Hmmm...Now, who can explain this thing to us and where shall we go from here?" Alice got back up again and stared up at the towering wall above them.

A little wiggling of the watch locket in Alice's hand and a blinding light emerged to reveal their new unicorn friend materialising again.

Alice and Dinah gasped upon seeing him. Its unicorn shimmered and flashed as a pair of wings appeared from its body. It beckoned with its head for Alice and Dinah to climb onto its back once more. Following, it began to take both of them to approach the centre of the tower, flying up to a level much higher than the floor where Alice and Dinah once stood. To their amazement, they were able to go through the walls to reach past the solid bricks into the inside of the tower, flying and ascending over seemingly endless flights of winding stairs...

Dinah nervously gripped tight onto Alice, who in turn has her arms wrapped snugly around their unicorn friend's neck as they plunged through the thickening air...

-End of Chapter-

* * *

James Birdsong: Thanks a lot for your review!


	5. Chapter 5

The further up the three of them went, each step of the winding stairs gradually transformed from its firm solid ice-like form into pools of reflective water, which ultimately ended as thin misty air ...Peering over the furry head of their galloping unicorn, Alice was able to notice this and very soon, their destination atop the Tower of Springs was reached, immediately bathing them and their sight in showers of rainbow rays and glistening light. In enveloping them, the seven-coloured rays joined end to end into the shape of a spherical bubble, floating and taking them up like a nature elevator, with a pair of flapping cotton wings appearing and projecting out of its opposite sides to fly itself higher and higher...Alice and Dinah were stunned and thoroughly amazed by their magical flight...Then, in just one blink of an eye to verify the experience to their senses, the contrast between the dark and dim wall-like interior in the background and the radiant light of the rainbow sphere they were in now switched into a surrounding scene of towering waterfall along with the bridge which Alice and Dinah were earlier taken to by their unicorn friend. At this moment, they were still inside the weightless sphere hovering above the familiar structure of the bridge...Sounds of descending many waters refreshed their ears and they could smell dews sweeter than honeycombs throughout the air...Alice cuddled Dinah comfortably in her arms, and for once thought she saw the unicorn horse smiling at them...Alas, it vanished just as fast into the pendant of her locket again, saddening Alice...

"No, unicorn, please don't leave us here like before...We don't want to stay without you...Please, come back," Alice spun round and round, totally unaware of where their new friend had gone to, much less has any idea that it had morphed into the engraving of her pendant surface. Even Dinah scratched its head wondering...One thing Alice came to discover was that she could stretch her hand through to the outside of the misty rainbow sphere, but she could not understand how she was able to stand so firmly on its base, as though it was firm solid. She stooped down and tried to reach her full arm beyond the coloured rays through the sphere's bottom. True indeed, she could push it through...

"Alice...Alice..."

The voice resounded in her ears again, and Alice became momentarily wobbly due to her posture and fell backwards to end up sitting flat on the base of the sphere, startling Dinah.

The curious girl looked and gazed all around...Intriguingly, the sphere right away morphed into its new shape of a recliner that immediately shifted Alice and Dinah into a much more comfortable sitting and leaning position, though it was still hovering midair.

"Wow! Did you see and feel this, Dinah?!" Alice marvelled, hugging and squeezing her little sweetie tight.

"Would you like to descend back down onto the bridge?"

Alice was surprised to be hearing it again and bolted upright, "Wh-What is that,...errr...Madam?"

Dinah was quick-witted to realise that the 'rainbow ray' recliner was beginning to descend, to which she was extremely overjoyed. Just before it landed on the floor of the bridge, Dinah leapt over and down for landing, causing Alice to grip hold of it in time to take herself along with the kitty and touch down with her feet on the bridge.

"Alice...Thank you so much for coming to meet me..."

Now, the voice could be heard over in the place, as opposed to reaching Alice internally and then her ears during the times before.

Alice was glancing around, "Oh, yes! I heard you, Madam...You are mysterious, so can I see you too?"

A soft laughter which sounded like the chiming of church bells followed, bringing a smile to Alice's wondering face.

"Anything you can behold here, I am a part of it...So you have already seen the parts and pieces of my face...Do let me apologise for not introducing myself earlier...I am, the Guardian of Time, the headkeeper of this Wonderland..."

Alice gasped with pleasure and curtseyed before the waterfall fountain, "It is an honour to meet with you, Madam Guardian...I should apologise for not observing my manners earlier...I am sorry..."

The Lady Guardian chuckled again, "It is also my greatest pleasure to meet with you, Alice. There will never be a demand for formal manners between us, and just between us, Alice, so please do not be mindful of apologies. You have won my heart with just the way you are, Alice, and you have the fullness of my favour."

Both Alice and Dinah exchanged glances before replying, "Have I indeed, Madam Guardian? Is there something you require of me and that's why we were taken here?"

The Lady Guardian answered in a pensive tone, "Yes, Alice...You are and will always be our most welcomed visitor to Wonderland...However, the state in which this once frutiful paradise used to be, is becoming harder to preserve...And that is why I need your help, Alice...You are the most trusted girl I can rely on to save this land, before its beauty vanishes."

Alice was not expecting this mission to be assigned to her, "My Madam Guardian, is time of the essence? Why is this Wonderland changing?"

A sigh likened to a thousand breezes seemed to tell of the desperation of the situation. The Guardian of Time continued to say, "Time is not time at all to me, and I have bestowed this privilege of time as your servant to you, my dearest Alice...Redeem it, before the Queen of Hearts overturns and devastates this Wonderland, which once upon a time, I have designated her as my loyal steward to oversee it on in my authority. Please, Alice, you are well able to accomplish it all...Thank you..."


	6. Chapter 6

Upon leaving the Tower of Springs and the Lady Guardian of Time, Alice was a little lost with little Dinah carried snugly in her arms. She was now wearing the watch locket and it seemed that each time she checked, its hands remained frozen pointing sharp at 12 o'clock. Alice began to wonder if it signified midnight or midday, with Dinah responding with a quiet shake of its head when Alice questioned the little companion. It appeared that the pathway leading out of the tower was no different than when she mysteriously ended up in Wonderland for the first time...It was dark and obscured with giant foliage of an overcast forested area. Light was elusive that Alice felt as though she was groping inside an unlit theater awaiting the mercy of a radiant spotlight being shone on them both, for even Dinah was intimidated...

A little surprised wiggling of her locket nearly frightened the wits out of them. Both Alice and Dinah was startled so abruptly that they stumbled over a pricky pebble and fell bracing themselves on the ground...For a moment, they struggled to be still and quiet, until the locket resounded with a catchy jolly tune. Dinah then nudged and swept up Alice's fringes uncovering her face to urge her young mistress to open her eyes again. Calming her fear, Alice took note of Dinah's hint of the playing locket, which reminded her of the songs she once heard sung during MadHatter's and March Hare's tea party.

Gathering herself back on her feet again, Alice beheld the once again moving hands of the watch, which slowly and then rapidly increased its turning speed, keeping pace with the swift emergence of scenes Alice once was involved in with MadHatter and March Hare flashing inside the screen of her mind...

Holding close the locket pendant, Alice decided and said to her dear Dinah, "Alright, I see now where we should be going, sweetie...Perhaps, it's about time we begin our journey to rediscover the mystery of this Wonderland! This place ought to have its light restored...I should have caught the signs of its disordering state much earlier, though I still could not put my finger on how severe it has gone...just as was revealed by Madam Guardian...Things are just about the same, here, there, and everywhere we can see..." She looked and felt about the oversized and overgrown bushes and canopy against an unclear backdrop around and above, allowing only a narrow, yet firm trail for them to tread on...Now, Alice recalled that she used to rely greatly on misleading signs back then on her first adventure...Only that, Mister Caterpillar and the singing Pansies seemed to be nowhere around here...


	7. Chapter 7

The more curious Alice got about missing Mister Caterpillar and the Pansy singers, the further she and Dinah have to wander through giant towering leaves with only little light all around. It seemed to take forever for her and poor Dinah to venture out of this heavy forest which surrounded them on all sides.

"Oh, this is going to last forever unless we find a way, Dinah..." Alice lamented pushing up and to the side another huge thick and burdensome leaf from blocking and sticking to her face and preventing her from seeing ahead, which was yet another long trail of annoying foliage. "Why did these things grow so fast? This is more than what I would expect..."

Finally, Alice decided to hop up and climb unto one of the stems, grabbing Dinah tight with one hand. However, the plant could voluntarily swing on its own and with one strong bend, the stem sent Alice and Dinah flying a distance as they lost grip and was flung through the air.

Startled, Alice did her best to hold on to Dinah and shut her eyes bracing against the force. Yet, in a flash, she could feel herself brushing over something feathery and cool. She could tell that Dinah was still locked securely against her chest, which relieved her. Squinting her eyes open, it surprised her to find out they were resting on a giant floating iceflake. Patting Dinah and glancing around, they were indeed floating in midair and those forest of leaves were far below them already.

A little smile crept onto her face, "Look at how we've escaped, Dinah dear! Honestly, there are now so much more of those nasty leaves around than I could remember." She then pointed out, "There...is that Tower where we left Madam Guardian!"

Dinah rubbed her eyes and Alice lifted her a little to show her the view more clearly. "Oh, thank you, Mister Snowflake...and your friends as well!" Alice uttered delightfully. With the breezy wind blowing through her hair, Alice was enjoying the ride with Dinah in her arms. Then Dinah was taking pleasure of the wonder tour as well, feeling all the more curious like her owner and playfully giving one of the pointed edges of the giant snowflake a slight turn with her paws, only to send it abruptly spinning so quickly and uncontrollably including Alice and her at the same time. The overwhelming and somewhat awfully dizzy experience led Alice to take out her lifesaving locket due to last minute desperation and threw it down while she held on firmly to one of its ends. The long chain of the locket was able to draw the snowflake and the two of them down lower and lower from the heights until the flake stopped spinning and they descended on a small circle of patch of emerald grass where a greater amount of light from above could befall unto this little cleared area.


End file.
